Gods of the Greataway (26 page)

It ended suddenly with a roar of rage, the way those Horse Day celebrations used to end, all too often.

Silver lurched to his feet and swung down the aisle, an expression of terrifying malignancy on his face, all clowning finished. He hurled his bottle and it shattered against the rear door that had slammed shut an instant before. “Avast there, ye mutinous whelps!” he shouted.

The door slid open again before Silver reached it, and Mentor staggered through as if pushed. He fell into Silver’s arms and they tottered as though trying to fit some crazy dance step together, then crashed to the floor. Silver was up immediately, levering himself on his crutch. He threw himself at the door, tugging at the handle.

“Well, will you just look at that,” said Blondie Tranter in tones of amazement.

She was staring out the window. Manuel followed her gaze and saw, among the stars, a mechanical device encapsulated in a golden corona so that it shone brightly against the dark backdrop of the Greataway. It was receding fast, but before it became just one more speck among the stars he was able to make out the angular shape of a railroad handcar, a flat platform on wheels and attached to it a long bar with handles at the extremities, pivoted on a central fulcrum. Pirates grasped these handles, three at each end, working them frantically up and down, propelling themselves and their bizarre carriage into nothingness. As they went they changed color, the golden glow deepened to green, then blue. Finally, a tiny purple spot, they winked out.

Silver turned
back from the door, a jovial smile fixed on his face. He dragged Mentor to his feet and dusted him off with brutal blows. Still smiling, he said quietly through his teeth, “We had a deal, me lad. As I recall, ye were to report any goings-on, and in return I’d steer ye clear o’ stormy weather. Well, ye shirked yer duty, lad, and now a bunch o’ lily-livered whelps have deserted the ship. And deserters they may be, but they had a power of psy, ye may lay to it! They
believed,
lad. They believed.”

“I’m … I’m sorry.”

“And sorrier yet will be.” Silver thrust his huge face close. “Because ye’re no use to man or ship, lad. Ye’re useless dunnage. I’ve a mind to be rid o’ ye. ‘Tis time ye met the stoker on this here craft.”

Mentor swallowed involuntarily; what had the Tranter woman said?
He introduces them to the fireman …
“Listen,” he said urgently. “I’ll —”

But Silver had whirled around and was stumping forward. About to disappear into the Locomotive, he suddenly paused and swung round to face the passengers, the smile intensified.

“Shipmates! The song!” Pounding with his crutch, he led the passengers into the chorus:

The lusty song faltered and faded out. Someone gave a small scream. Silver’s voice petered out too, in bewilderment and anger. Then he followed the direction of everyone’s gaze. He turned round.

Standing beside him, in the passage between the carriage and the Locomotive, was the fireman. Silver backed away with a groan of pure terror. The black-cowled figure advanced two measured steps, then stopped, scanning the passengers silently from under a cowl that held all the emptiness of Space.

Silver bolted past
him toward the cab of the Locomotive.

Zozula regarded the fireman for a moment, but quickly averted his eyes as a deep cold seemed to flow down his spine and a wild fear grew within him that threatened to burst from his lips. He swallowed heavily and turned away, fighting the urge to jump to his feet and run. After a while he became aware of Mentor crying weakly, and embarrassment temporarily took the place of fear.

“He’s a coward,” he told Manuel, “a damned coward. I can’t believe he’s a clone of mine.”

“He’s never had to take care of himself. You must be fair to him, Zozula. You’ve had hundreds of years of responsibility, in charge of the Dome, giving orders. So of course you’ve grown up differently.”

“Nonsense!” Trying to forget the faceless fireman, Zozula threw himself into the argument. “Mentor comes of excellent genetic stock. He must have suffered a mutation. It’s not apparent on the surface but it’s there inside him — a weakness. A rot. Look, the Girl’s gone over to comfort him. She’s
mothering
him, for God’s sake.”

But Manuel wasn’t listening. He, too, was watching the Girl, and surprised by the sudden expression of terror on her face, wondered what she was looking at. It wasn’t the fireman. It was something else, something outside the window.

Then he saw it too.

S
uddenly,
the Girl felt cold. The stars no longer flittered past the windows; instead, a pale mist swirled around the carriage. The Train slowed in its headlong flight through Space.

The Girl remembered seeing an eye. She didn’t
see
an eye. She never saw it. What happened was that a recollection of having seen an eye appeared in her memory. The eye was red and fierce, with a pinpoint black pupil.

The Girl screamed. Simultaneously Manuel started. Zozula gasped, then said, “It wasn’t there.”

As if in answer, a voice suddenly shouted, “AH, HAH!”, and a figure bounded through the wall of the carriage and landed nimbly in the aisle, bouncing lightly on its feet, crouching, darting fiery glances around at the passengers.

The Girl had never seen a more fearsome creature in her life. It was man-sized and hairily naked, with bowed, sinewy legs and a squat torso with massive shoulders, giving the initial impression of a hirsute, muscular toad. It was its face, however, that filled her with dread and nausea — because that face was almost human, yet inhuman to an unimaginable degree, a brutish travesty of Humanity. She found she was still screaming. Everybody was. The creature was a toad, an alligator, a cobra, everything she loathed. It was a Bale Wolf.

Yet the other passengers saw different Bale Wolves …

They were jumping to their
feet, running, colliding with one another and the carriage fixtures, beating off assailants that only they could see.

“She’s going to blow!”

Silver stood in the doorway, face working. Then he saw the confusion and his gaze slid this way and that, finally fixing on a spot in midair, near a window.

“Ah, no …” he murmured, eyes wide, backing away. “No, no … No you don’t. NO YOU DON’T!!” And he was screaming too, whirling his crutch like a propeller, his gaze fixed on a dreadful invisible thing.

The Girl’s Bale Wolf was sidling toward her.

Its face … low-browed, cunning little eyes bloodshot, thick nose almost a snout. And somehow most terrifying of all, the mouth … Wide and fringed with hair, like a muzzle, forward-projecting, agape and gleaming with pointed, yellowing teeth.

She was trapped in her seat, pinned there by her own fear as the beast scuttled down the aisle, then swung itself, monkeylike, over the intervening seats. The Girl’s fingers closed on something hard. A weapon.

The Bale Wolf crouched on the next seat, bobbing on its haunches, stinking. Then suddenly it ducked its head.

Ages later the Girl brought her hand up and with all her strength swung the fire extinguisher.

The Bale Wolf didn’t even blink. The extinguisher flew out of the Girl’s hand and passed straight through its head. For an instant, the beast had slipped into the Ifalong.

Then it was on her, claws scrabbling at her clothing, baring her flesh while its mouth passed briefly over her face, pausing at her lips before dropping to her throat, worrying, tearing …

*

“She’s going to blow!”

The Girl froze for an instant, seeing in the Bale Wolf the sum total of every nightmare she had ever had. Then she jumped to her feet. Manuel was there, fighting with something she couldn’t see … Then she saw it, shadowy and revolting, clawing at his throat for a second before sidling into some dimension where it avoided Manuel’s desperate kick.

She
ran for the toilet at the rear of the carriage, pushing past the struggling passengers. A Bale Wolf materialized before her, slashing at her groin in passing, before turning its attention to its original prey, Sir Charles. It winked out. Sir Charles’s eyes widened as silently he fought the monster that he alone could see, and the clothes began to fall from him in shreds.

“You, most of all.” The voice was a snarl among the screaming, and she couldn’t tell where it came from. She reached the toilet, flung the door open and fell inside.

But the Bale Wolf was in there with her.

It jigged up and down on the washbasin, watching her trying to unlock the door again. Her fingers were like putty. It slashed at her breast and its claws ripped the flesh cleanly down the rib. She doubled up, vomiting. Instantly it was on her back, biting at her neck while its legs wrapped around her waist and its bony fingers dug into her shoulders until, losing her footing on the blood-slippery floor, she fell …

*

“She’s going to blow!”

Then Silver, taking in the situation, flung his crutch like a javelin. As it passed through the torso of a Bale Wolf, the creature uttered a screech of triumph and disappeared. Blood suddenly gouted from Silver’s throat.

The Girl stared in bewilderment and horror. Everybody seemed to be thrashing about. What was happening? Manuel looked right through her, and she flinched as he aimed a punch just above her right shoulder. She passed Zozula as she edged to the rear door. The old man seemed to have gone crazy, wind milling his arms, yelling.

A voice spoke in her ear. “You, most of all, Girl. You, with your soft fatness, all cozy there in your womb of safety. You, so gentle and pretty and inventive and good, with no fears, never knowing danger or anger or pain …”

“I know those things,” said the Girl, reaching the door and jerking it open.

“You know nothing,” said the voice. “But you will. You will.”

The
Girl slammed the door and stood in the dim vestibule between carriages. What was going on?

And the voice continued. “We can never show you what it’s like to be rejected as unclean, as we were. But we can show you fear, and pain. A person ought to learn those things, before she dies …”

The voice was soft and the hands were obscenely gentle, too, stroking and prodding her body as if it were meat.

“Go away!”

“This is the best way … slowly. Pain is so much worse when the fear precedes it. I’m going to hurt you soon. I’m going to hurt you a little at first, then more, and more … Until your mind snaps inside that pretty head of yours. Until you go mad. You will soon look forward to going mad, my pretty fat baby.”

The door crashed open and Blondie Tranter ran through, beating with her hands about her head as though to drive off invisible birds. “Oh, God! Oh,
God!”
She slid to the floor and rolled over and died with the horror frozen in her eyes.

“Too fast,” said the voice.

“Where
are
you? Manuel! Help me, Manuel!” She still couldn’t see the Bale Wolf who held her — but through the open vestibule door she now saw a score of darting, tearing beasts in the carriage, flitting among the passengers, flickering into being, slashing, flickering out. They were merciless. They had no pity. There were the Bale Wolves.

“Now …” said the voice.

Before she died, she saw Manuel toppling, and the thing on his back was eating him as he fell …

*

“She’s going to blow!”

The diabolical creature hopped toward the Girl, scratching at its flank and chattering wordlessly. She slipped into the aisle and pushed past Bambi, who murmured, “It’ll all turn out right in the end,” while the blood poured from her brown shoulders.

The Bale Wolf dodged after the Girl. Pandemonium broke out among the passengers. She made for the Locomotive, backing, watching the creature that flitted from place to place with incredible rapidity. Silver’s crutch clattered past her and she grabbed it, and held it before her. The Bale Wolf jumped, an agile leap that took it to the ceiling and back.

She swung
the crutch at where its knees had been. Then she ran for the door.

A tall, black-cowled figure barred her way. “There’s no way out here,” he said.

The Bale Wolf was upon her, salivating. Drool trickled down the hair of its jaws as it seized her arm.

Then suddenly it was gone.

T
he roar
was like a thousand volcanoes. The Girl was apart from it all, detached, floating in Space and watching it all happen — but not a part of it. Not affected. Manuel, Zozula and Mentor were there, too she sensed that.

Flames and smoke swept through the vestibule and into the carriage. The Girl saw something that she was to carry with her for the rest of her life, etched into her memory — an image of death. The fireman, standing in the full blast from the Locomotive, raised his arms so that his cloak hung from them like condor’s wings, and he stood there while the flames boomed past him — and the cloak did not burn; it didn’t even flutter.

The fiery breath affected the other passengers, however. Belief faded.

The Bale Wolves disappeared.

The carriage began to dissolve. The Train was breaking up. The passengers were still there, screaming as they tumbled in the blast of the furnace, but the Train was evaporating and leaving its cargo stranded in the Greataway.

The Girl, still detached, found time to wonder how the Rainbow was handling all this. Sir Charles fell past her with flailing arms. The others were falling, too, receding into the blackness of Space, which opened up all around and consumed the false fabric of the Train. Only Silver was still there, standing beside the fireman. The blast had left him untouched, too.

But he was fading.
He looked at himself, then clutched his arm. A growing horror showed on his broad face. “By the Powers … !” And then his voice was gone, and his hat, and his sea-cloak. Now he was a shadow, and the steam was blowing through him as he struggled with the final, unbelievable irony.